


pretty drummah, walkin' down the street

by dearmaggiemay



Series: queen+cordelia [5]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018)
Genre: Gen, I Don't Even Know, Introspection, Multi, even less being freddie's friend, i got carried away with this one, roger is pretty and he knows it, would be unaware of lgbt issues in the 70s, you can't tell me that 'intellectually extremely bright' roger taylor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 13:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18572812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmaggiemay/pseuds/dearmaggiemay
Summary: At twenty-three years old, Roger Taylor was sure he was straight.(Mostly sure. Kinda? His bandmates were gorgeous, but, whatever.)





	pretty drummah, walkin' down the street

At twenty-three years old, Roger Taylor was sure he was straight.

(Mostly sure. Kinda? His bandmates were gorgeous, but, whatever.)

Before moving from Norfolk to London, he hadn't thought that much about gay people. Sure, they existed, and Roger's guts revolted at they way they were treated just the same he hated how fat girls would be teased at highschool, how the nerdy kids got they books stolen, how some of his classmates would mock his short height before puberty hit him a bit later than everybody else.

So, yeah, gay people had been somewhere in his mind, but they hadn't quite stood out. They were just another part of the group that his mind labelled as 'People that other people are bastards to for no reason'. Roger didn't know any gay person, as far as he knew, and he wasn't gay himself (of that he was definitely sure. He one hundred percent liked girls. Whether he liked blokes as well was a question for drunk Roger to think about) so the issue wasn't really his bussiness and just slipped from his thoughts more often than not. It was just something he was vaguely aware of.

And then he decided to grow out his hair. It hadn't  been a decision, actually, but rather a forgetfulness. He was busy with college and Smile and everything else, so he actually forgot about getting a haircut until Brian mentioned it one day during band practice. Roger had barely bitten back a comeback about Brian's hair because he knew his friend was actually pretty self-conscious about it. Roger had the feeling that if Brian stopped straightening his hair, he would look like Jimmy Hendrix. He didn't see how that was a bad thing.

What he did see, as his hair grew longer and longer, was how people stared at it, at his clothes. The way some of his classmates snickered and muttered when he walked pass them, the way some people at the streets would shout insults when it was dark and late and alcohol had lowered everybody's inhibitions. The ever diplomatic Brian would give those people a murderous look, using his height to tower over everybody else and keep people at bay. "Ignore them, Rog," he would say. Tim, on the other hand, was more akin to Roger's impulsiveness and got in a couple of fights over the drummer.

His bandmates had no problem at all with Roger's stylistic choices -Brian himself was also rather fond of the whole glam aesthetic, even if he didn't dare yet to pull it off- and after a while, he fucked enough girls that people stopped thinking he was gay. Not that he thought there was something wrong with being gay, because who people took to bed wasn't his business unless he was the one being taken to said bed, but it was safer. 

It hit him during a night out, clubbing at some cheap pub were they were given free drinks after their gig. Some familiar faces went to congratulate them about the show and Roger felt it, felt the shift from 'Smile's drummer is gay now' to 'Roger's fashion sense is weird but he's a good bloke'. People were friendlier, guys slapped him on the back and told him  _how badass_ his drumming was. Just a few weeks earlier, some of those guys had moved away from him in crowds as if they feared... What? That Roger would treat them like they treated women? Just a few weeks earlier they had had to leave another pub when a guy and like four of his friends had tried to punch Roger. His only crime? Wearing eyeliner, apparently. His eyes were pretty, hell,  _he_ was pretty. What was he supposed to do, put a paper bag on his head just because most blokes thought a man couldn't be pretty?

Taking a sip of his beer, Roger stood on his toes to watch Freddie. The latest adition to their group -not to their band, as much as Freddie hated that fact- wasn't conventionally pretty, or handsome, or whatever. But there was something about him that made Freddie utterly gorgeous, and Roger wasn't quite sure of what it was. Maybe those warm, sparkly eyes, or the cheekbones, or the fluffy hair or the way he shyly ducked his head to hide his mouth whenever he smiled.

Freddie wasn't feminine in the way Roger sometimes was, even if people's idea of feminity was apparently reduced having long blond hair and pretty eyes. But the way he dressed, the way he moved and talked, with those all  _darlings_ , was enough to get the same insults and threats that Roger had gotten weeks ago before people had somehow decided he was straight after all. It hit him like a truck, the fear that his friend, one of the loveliest, most selfless, caring and generous people Roger knew could get beaten up in some dark corner.

And that was Freddie, who had friends and a family that loved him even if they weren't on the best terms. What about those other people? People who had to leave their villages and move into the city, people that were thrown out of their homes by their own families or submitted to atrocious medical procedures that fried their brains. Roger hadn't needed to do anything but _listening_ in order to learn those and some other things. Hell, less than five years ago people could get imprisoned for something that was done in the privacy of their own homes. Now it was legal, but barely, and it didn't change much. Roger flinched whenever other blokes were thrown out of pubs just for looking a bit different. Girls had it a bit easier because people barely thought anything of two girls locking arms, but men...

Every single time it was talked about, Roger couldn't help but think that it could have been Freddie, it could have been his friend. And while nothing serious ever happened to him, there were so many other people that weren't lucky... It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that fucking fascists could give their bloody opinion but nobody did nothing to protect gay people from a harrasement that happened almost on a daily basis. Freddie didn't even look like he had heard anything when it happened, but Roger's blood boiled every time he heard some bloke saying how he would punch  _that faggot pakki's teeth back in_. Just the thought of that beautiful smile being punched off his friend's face was enought to make Roger want to throw every single biased bastard into the Thames -with a rope around their necks, if possible. He was pretty sure that Brian would help.

Freddie had so many issues with his mouth that for the first three or so years Roger had seen him smiling properly only once, a night when they had been tidying up their stall. (Was it a good idea to get a stall, on top of college and the band? Probably not, but rent wasn't cheap). They had been drunk on cheap wine and Roger had said something he couldn't remember but was probably stupid and senseless. It made Freddie laugh, however. It was the kind of visceral laugh that leaves people rolling on the floor, unable to speak, crying and struggling to catch their breathes. The dentist part of Roger, creepy as it was, would have loved to get a closer look at that mouth. The human part of Roger got a metaphorical blow to the chest, hard enough that he tripped over a box and fell flat on his arse -which made Freddie laugh even harder. Not that Roger actually minded, as he got a few more seconds of the most gorgeous smile he had ever seen.

Okay so maybe, just maybe, he wasn't that straight, maybe he had a tiny crush on one of his best friends. Or maybe he was straight; Delia was of the opinion that every single human being was bound to have a crush on Freddie at some point, so it didn't count. Whatever.

The actress had barged into their lives and their stall asking for a dress, promptly developing one of the biggest crushes on Freddie Roger had ever seen (and, over the years, he had seen quite a lot of people crushing hard on Freddie. Mostly artsy girls and some old lady buying something at the stall, but also quite a lot of guys). It went away fairly quickly, somewhere in between Tim leaving and Deaky and Delia moving in, and Roger honestly mourned it. Delia's facial expressions whenever Freddie showed them a new outfit had been priceless. 

That crush eventually turned into a really close friendship. It wasn't weird, the five of them bonded over different things while still supporting each other. Roger had no fucking idea about physics or electronics and it didn't stop him and Delia from helping Brian and Roger studying while Freddie sketched star maps and diagrams for them. Everybody patiently posed for Freddie whenever the inspiration hit him (even though said inspiration made its appearance at three in the morning more often than not) just the same way nobody protested when Roger, Freddie and Delia dragged them along in a shopping spree or put makeup on them. The band had no idea about theatre and Delia had no idea about music, but having an outsider listening always helped no matter if they were listening to Othello or guitar riffs.

However, Roger wasn't quite sure what Delia and Freddie could had in common that also set them apart from the rest. It was obvious about Freddie, even while he started dating Mary, but Delia was straight. Right? She messed around with guys almost as often as Roger did the same with girls, so there was little wondering about it. However, the sneaky stares between her and Freddie at some pubs or around certain people caught Roger's eye. In the end, he guessed Delia had come to the conclusion that Freddie wasn't straight and was trying to be a good friend, just like the rest of them did by pretending not to see the way Freddie would cling on Mary whenever his eyes started to wander around too much.

Therefore, he felt quite stupid the morning a girl came out from Delia's room. Roger wasn't proud of it but his emotions got the worse out of him, sometimes, and while realistically he knew why one just didn't come out to a rock band he also felt a bit left behind. Like his friends didn't trust them, or rather like Delia didn't trust them, because they all knew about Freddie so it wasn't really a surprise. Delia was, however, and Roger could had screwed things quite badly before Brian interrupted his rant to knock some sense into him. While Delia's angry glance felt like a punch to the face, Freddie's sad and slightly scared expression straight up broke Roger's heart, and that settled everything. Who even cared if Roger had or hadn't known? He wasn't the one coming out and in danger of getting his face kicked in, for fuck's sake.

He felt the shift that same day and it wasn't subtle, because honestly Queen had the colective subtlety of a steamroller. They had always been protective of each other for different reasons; Brian drowned into dark thoughts more often than it was healthy to, Deaky was the youngest and got a bit too nervous with new people, Roger looked kinda gay even if he wasn't that sure of what the fuck he was, Freddie looked really gay and wasn't actually straight (wasn't white, on top of everything else) and Delia was a girl. Roger was all for women's rights but he couldn't deny that theh still needed a man behind them, even more when they moved in the rock scene. Even more when said girl wasn't straight and was therefore more vulnerable.

They were all a bit more protective of her from that day on although as he watched Delia and Freddie cuddling on the couch, Roger couldn't really tell if she had noticed. Maybe it was for the best if she didn't; Roger's emotions sometimes got the worse out of him but Delia wasn't very different from him in that aspect.

“A little help here?” Brian called out from the kitchen. A huge cloud of steam was coming out of it and threatening to flood the living room. “Guys?”

“Rog?” Deaky said, not bothering to look up from his amp. Roger shook his head.

“No fucking chance, I just came back from the stall. Besides, I’m useless at the kitchen.”

“I’ll go.” Delia rolled her eyes and left the couch, to Freddie’s dismay. His smile was back once Delia put a kitten on his lap (was it Tom? No, Tom was the grey one) before diving into the cloud of steam and presumably the kitchen. Roger promptly took his chance and dropped down on the couch next to Freddie, being careful not to crush the white kitten that suddenly meowed from behind a cushion.

“We are being invaded,” he dramatically announced. Freddie snorted and kept petting the grey kitten. He looked incredibly soft and small, although that was maybe because he was wearing one of Brian’s jumpers that was huge on him.

“Don’t lie, darling. You love them, even if you didn’t want to keep them.”

Yeah, Roger hadn’t wanted to keep three sick kittens that would probably die and break Freddie’s heart, blame him.

(Yeah, he loved those three furry, whiny creatures. Even the white one, Delia’s, a whinier thing that apparently hated everybody.)

Freddie was slightly smaller than him, what allowed Roger to pull him into his lap for a propper cuddle. Freddie yelped in surprise and one of the kittens actually bit him, but Roger didn’t let go and hid his face in Freddie’s neck. He hadn’t lied earlier, he had just come back from the stall and was tired, and as far as he was concerned the crook of Freddie’s neck was the best place for a nap. One too many hangovers had taught him so.

Freddie, who was as cuddly and handsy as Roger himself, made a cute cooing sound and his hands were soon running through Roger’s blond locks in a soothing pattern. Roger let out a happy, relieved sigh and closed his eyes, allowing his body to relax against the couch, against his friend. If he held Freddie a bit closer, well, who could blame him?

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you have enjoyed this rant kinda from Roger's pov. Nothing like one of your best friends or even yourself getting harrased over your sexuality to knock some awareness into anybody, I guess. Also, the end of the chapter would be based on Chapter 4: 1971 (II) of i cannot heave / my heart into my mouth. Go check it if you haven't, it's a hot mess about Brian's hair, the band meeting their first manager, life at the flat, kittens and coming out while everybody is in their pyjamas.
> 
> Edit: omg I've read this after a while and it's a whole ass rant of Roger finding Freddie pretty and threatening to fight the world for him I'm...


End file.
